VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (Letters)

Band-Aid budget no cure for schools

September 04, 2007|By Mary Ellen Guest, Campaign Manager, A+ Illinois

Chicago — It's back to school time, and parents across Illinois are scrambling to fill their kids' backpacks with enough notebooks, folders and pencils to get them through the school year. But on Thursday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved a budget that will leave local property taxpayers scrambling to finance their share of the school funding bill, or face another round of cuts in the classroom. In many districts, back-to-school means back to crumbling school buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and outdated books and computers.

Illinois leaders boast that this budget is a win-win for schools, a "record investment" in education. However, the only winners under this budget are those same leaders who will take credit for improving school funding without taking real action to fix our broken school funding system, or strengthen state-supported services vital to the well-being of children and families.

As my grandmother would say: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This budget ignores the core problems plaguing Illinois schools, such as the too-heavy dependence on local property taxes, the disparity in resources available to rich and poor communities, the chronic funding shortfalls in districts across the state, denying many children access to a great education. This budget avoids any attempt to repair Illinois' inadequate and unfair revenue system, leaving us unable to meet the basic needs of children and families.

The money promised to schools will be subject to the whims of next year's General Assembly, which goes back to the budget drawing board in the spring. Without a permanent funding source, our schools must return to Springfield with their hands open, hoping for more than just pocket change. Nearly $600 million for schools does sound impressive, but does little to reverse the growing dependence on local property taxes as a primary funding source for education.

Since 2001, the state's share of school funding has dropped from 39 percent to 32 percent, forcing school districts to either raise revenues through property taxes, or balance their budgets by cutting learning programs. To make up for the state's shortfall, the amount homeowners and other local property taxpayers have spent on schools jumped from $9.7 billion in 2001 to $12.2 billion in 2005 (the last year data wereavailable), a 26 percent increase in just four years. That kind of spike will look familiar to anyone who's opened a property tax bill lately By failing to enact comprehensive reform, we continue to jeopardize the future of hundreds of thousands of children. What now? With an election next fall, candidates will soon come looking for your vote. Do your homework. Ask what they have done -- and will do -- to truly reform school funding and quality so that every child has access to a quality education. Ask them how they plan to put Illinois on sound fiscal footing. Tell them your vote depends on it.